Everything Apple Announced at Its Welcome Home Event

Apple's Welcome Home event is over, and the rumors from the past few weeks turned out to be mostly right. Rather than a streamed keynote, Apple held an invitation only gathering in New York and used it to refresh its entire smart home lineup in one go. Three products came out of it: a brand new home hub called HomeView, an updated Apple TV 4K, and a second generation HomePod mini.

HomeView, Apple's first home hub

HomeView is the headline product, priced at $299. It is built around a 7 inch Liquid Retina display that can sit on a countertop or mount to a wall, and it works as a shared hub for up to six people in one household, recognizing whoever is interacting with it by face and switching to that person's own apps, widgets and content automatically. One notable limitation at launch is that HomeView does not support the App Store, so its software is limited to what Apple builds into it directly rather than third party apps.

Apple TV 4K gets Siri built in

The new Apple TV 4K also costs $299 and brings a faster A19 chip, more onboard storage, and Wi Fi 7. The bigger change is three far field microphones built into the box itself, letting you talk to Siri directly without needing to pick up the remote. A fourth generation Siri Remote is launching alongside it and will also be sold separately for owners of older Apple TV models.

HomePod mini 2

Rounding out the lineup is the HomePod mini 2, priced at $149, with a faster chip inside and a new set of color options. Apple has not detailed every internal change, but it is positioning the update as the audio half of the new home strategy, working alongside HomeView and the Apple TV 4K rather than replacing either.

Apple Home Collection

Apple also used the event to introduce something new called the Apple Home Collection, a set of accessories built by outside partners including LG and Schneider Electric, all designed to connect into Apple's own home system. The initial range covers indoor and outdoor cameras, a video doorbell, a smart door lock, and thermostats with temperature sensors, giving HomeView actual hardware to control right out of the gate instead of waiting on existing HomeKit devices from other companies.

One caveat worth knowing before buying into any of this: the new Siri AI features across HomeView, Apple TV 4K and HomePod mini 2 are not launching in the European Union at the same time as everywhere else, so EU buyers may see a more limited feature set at first. Apple has not given a firm date for when that gap closes.

Pricing on the Apple TV 4K and HomePod mini also moved up compared with their outgoing models, continuing the price increases Apple made across its home lineup earlier in the year. Release dates for all three products have not been confirmed yet, so the next thing to watch is when preorders actually open.